Chapter One
Dusk had fallen long ago. If she was entirely honest with herself, Abigail would admit that it was nighttime. But if she didn’t, she continued with her laborious work. The idea of returning home did not appeal to her.
Bending in closer over the desk, she continued to work away. Her clothes were shabby, including her father’s breeches, but that didn’t matter since he had died four years ago.
She bent closer to the ammonite, tugging her recent find gently into the only source of light.
With a deep sigh to steady her anticipation, Abigail bent, studying her find.
If it was as valuable as her previous fossil, it would be a great boon to her family coffers.
She continued to dust and move the remains of the sandy peat away until she was interrupted by a small but very familiar tutting sound from behind her.
“It’s gone seven,” someone called from the darkness of the workshop. Abigail sat upright and glanced back over her shoulder. She already knew it was her oldest sister. No one else could convey so much protective judgement in so few words.
“I’ve got my knife,” said Abigail. She really would prefer to stay out despite the wintry chill in the air which would be worse on the walk home.
Judith stood ten feet away, almost entirely hidden by the shadows of the mainly unlit workshop.
The only thing that was truly visible was the light glinting off the long flintlock blunderbuss musket that Judith held.
It had belonged to their father and then it had been left to their manservant, but since Lindfield hadn’t kept his position long, it had passed to Judith.
“The food is growing cold,” Judith tried again.
She moved closer and Abigail observed the confidence with which her oldest sister handled the weapon, as if she would not mind if she had to fire it.
Judith was straight backed and prim looking with her plain hair scraped back, making her look older than her thirty years.
“Mother told me to keep an eye on you.” It was Judith’s winning card: the promised threat of their mother, and one which Abigail had to listen to.
With great reluctance, Abigail stood up, dragging a weighty piece of black material over her treasured find.
Fossil hunters had increased in the last five years, although they were normally gone during the cooler months.
No one would be mad enough to break into the workshop, Abigail told herself.
She stretched as she walked closer to her sister.
Rather than greet her, Judith leaned forward and blew out Abigail’s source of light.
“Better now to draw too much attention,” Judith whispered as she linked her free arm with Abigail.
Her sister often made comments like this, about the possibility of dangers in the night, but Abigail had never seen any evidence of that.
Her knife was more likely to be used for cleaning or unearthing a fossil than anything else.
Judith directed Abigail out of the workshop, and waited while Abigail locked up.
Once done, they started back toward home, cutting through the gloom, down a well-known track that ran along the seaside bank, before taking the track that would lead toward their house, which was located in the heart of Lyme Regis town.
Judith was an old hand at maneuvering through the unlit streets whereas Abigail would have struggled without a light.
Once they’d reached the outer limits of the town, Abigail felt her sister relax a touch. Judith said in her normal tone of voice, “A letter arrived from Bath.”
“Are Mother and Sophia both well?” The two of them had been gone for the past two weeks, obstinately to enjoy the waters and the sights of the fine cosmopolitan city but in reality to find a much-needed husband for Sophia. A titled one was the aim, a wealthy one was a requirement.
“I refrained from opening the letter without you,” Judith replied.
They walked round the back of the house, and were now positioned to enter the property through the rear of the garden.
Her sister touched Abigail’s arm and moved away to push open the back garden’s door revealing the dark shape of the garden and then the empty house beyond it.
“I thought we could enjoy it together over our evening meal.”
Supper, Abigail thought cynically, was not going to be an enjoyable affair.
Not anymore. Ever since their father had died, the family funds had been significantly reduced.
One of the first things to be deducted had been the servants, swiftly followed by the range of food available on their table.
Judith struggled to fill up the empty space now that their mother and Sophia were away.
Perhaps the letter would prove a godsend into the stony silence they often sat through.
“I will clean up,” Abigail said. Half her mind was still on the vertebrate she had left behind in the workshop.
If her father were still alive, he would have skipped food and been holding up the candles himself and letting her finish the extraction.
“I will need to get up early tomorrow,” Abigail added, trying to get her sister to see that the only real source of income they had was the money she made from the fossils.
“As long as you’re safely abed this evening, I have a bad feeling about tonight,” Judith replied as she lowered the weapon onto the nearest side table and looked back up at her. “Come through to the kitchen when you’re ready.”
Abigail nodded, and proceeded toward the dining room. If only she could get Judith to understand why she spent so much time outside digging up those fossils.
It was not merely that the “snake stones” or “devil fingers,” as the locals called it, were a source of income, but it was what they represented—they were a way of learning about the ancient world.
What one curved side of a fossil could reveal was an entire history.
What one belemnite might sell for a few pennies, it meant far more.
It was the most incredible thing imaginable, that one scholarly find revealed a whole world beyond the understanding of almost everyone.
If only her sisters could understand both the monetary opportunity, not to mention the historical and scientific importance of her discoveries—the way their father had.
Smiling at the idea that one day she’d convinced Judith and Sophia, Abigail set about preparing her latest belemnite.
*
Half an hour later, Abigail’s mood had not improved. Nor was Judith’s pinched expression doing anything to relieve her stress.
“What would you do if we were to discover ourselves bankrupt? Sophia would be forced toward whatever match she might get…but us? Mother makes it clear she thinks the only answer is marriage.”
Judith had embraced spinsterhood years ago, with an eagerness that disappointed their mother but made sense to Abigail.
Judith hated to be governed. Any man who attempted to woo or tame her spirit and opinions would have very little success and might even end up with a black eye.
It was a dear, dear shame, as Mrs. Fossey had always said, because Judith had quite the loveliest grey eyes imaginable and reddish auburn hair if only she brushed and styled it correctly.
She might be quite pretty was the common refrain from their mother.
If only Judith tried. It made Abigail admire her sister a great deal more.
Of course, Mrs. Fossey never made such comments about Abigail.
Their mother’s letter, with its comments, questions, and reports, detailed in surprisingly stark language the lack of success Sophia was enjoying in the city.
Mrs. Fossey was requesting yet more money to satisfy whatever it was she needed.
Her requirements had been detailed on the back page.
Oh yes, the Bath society was struck and impressed by Sophia’s dazzling raven curls and her mesmerizing cornflower blue eyes, but when it came to her lack of fortune, it seemed that offers at the moment were surprisingly short on the ground.
Judith had folded the missive up and looked concerned before fixing her cool gaze on Abigail at the end of the table.
“What shall we do?” Judith asked into the silence. There was a small supper of boiled potatoes, radishes and haddock. It was a meal designed for only one stomach, but Judith had insisted that it be split between the two of them.
Abigail had bitten her lip. She never quite had the right words, whereas Judith always had them. They seemed to roll off her eldest sister’s tongue like music to Abigail’s ears. Their father used to say that Judith should have been a man and therefore could have been the most convincing of lawyers.
“My fossils—”
“We can only keep the workshop, because Father bought it outright,” Judith said.
Abigail had hoped to say she would make money, plenty of it, alongside gaining a name for herself with her fossils, Judith had simply looked annoyed and rebutted her with a weary answer.
“That will not suffice, no. A practical solution would be marriage to a local man. If only there were one suitable.”
One day, Abigail wished she would have the perfect answer to Judith’s quick words.
The perfect answer was something along the lines of, “Why are you looking for a husband? Will you marry Mr. Bellevue or whatever student Doctor Owlery is teaching next?” That response to her spinster-ish sister that would give Judith a momentary pause.
But Abigail could not make herself ask these questions and the silence dragged until Judith shook her head and excused herself.
*
The next morning Abigail rose before Judith. Deliberately. The memory of their one-sided discussion, the letter and meal still burning through her, she recalled the awkward question and how she had had to bite her tongue.